Windows 8.1 is a big pile of crap.

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I needed a new Windows computer to test out my software (written for earlier Windows versions) and I bought a small (10") touch screen laptop on special offer. The computer itself is great and the touch screen features good too; but Windows 8.1 is the worst operating system I've ever used. All these tiles in my face - none of which I want but the programs and features I do want are buried in inaccessible places all over the system.

I downloaded the Classic Shell Start button and that has improved the user interface 100%. How the hell Microsoft thought anyone can use the computer without a ready means of getting to the programs and various settings etc god only knows.

Still trying to come to terms with using the track pad and find it often misinterprets small mouse movements as mouse clicks or even as a small drag and drop operation - which nearly caused havoc as it interpreted a small mouse movement as grab a system folder and dump it inside another system folder - at that stage I plugged in a USB mouse - don't want to wreck the system within 24 hours! Another problem with the track pad is it keeps misinterpreting movements near the right side of the pad to tell me the f*****g date and time again for the fiftieth time today. I get that sweeping in from the right means do that and show some crappy task bar on the right of the screen but 99% of the time that isn't what I want to happen and my fingers just happen to have drifted to that side of the pad. Same with the screen touch features - if I need to touch something close to the right of the screen the bar has a tendency to appear -it is more annoying than "Clippy" - "Would you like some help or would you like me to eff off and die?".

Time for a Google search on how to turn off more of the crappy features on Windows 8.1. The latest annoyance I came across was when I opened an MP3 and instead of it running in VLC Media player (I'd told VLC to be the default media player for everything during its installation) it ran the bloody Microsoft media player instead. The next thing I knew the MS media player had disappeared from screen completely but was still playing the MP3. I searched high and low but couldn't find the running instance of the media player to stop it, so ended up rebooting the computer just to stop it! I've now set MP3s to play by default in VLC - don't know why that setting was lost in the first place.

I wish I could delete every last app tile on the computer and be done with that part of the operating system. It is of zero interest to me and just gets in the way. At least the computer boots directly to desktop now since I've installed that classic shell start button.

Windows 8.1 is the most counter intuitive pile of rubbish ever released by Microsoft. I know most people hate it and now I fully understand why. I know what I want to do on the computer but the default Windows 8.1 user interface just leaves me staring at the screen without an effing clue how to do it or even how to find out how to do it. Complete productivity killer. I thought Vista was bad, but by comparison Vista is a masterpiece in comparison to Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 is even worse than Windows M.E.

/rant.

If you're really sick of Win8, but like the Windows workflow, give this a try? --You will need to diable the Secure Boot option in your BIOS/Firmware in order for it to work.

Your other alternative is buying a copy of Win7 and getting rid of the horrible Aero Desktop.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Someone suggested Puppy Linux a while ago and I've got that on a bootable CD. It is quite good. If it wasn't for needing to run some of my own Windows based software I would likely have switched to one or more of the Linux offerings years ago. I don't think Wine supports applications written using the MS network framework, so I'm somewhat stuck with Microsoft. I just wish they didn't turn out crap like Windows 8.

The new (Win 8.1) computer is intended to be used largely by my wife, who is virtually computer illiterate, so I'm having to write some little programs to automate some of the steps to using Windows 8! She can't cope with huge lists of instructions ... double click this then single click that, then right click this then click the little arrow to the left then ... by now she's getting flustered and given up. I'm likely going to write a simple program that runs on startup and offers her the programs she needs and launches them with the relevant files / folders / URLs without her having to dig down through folders to find what she wants. It was bad enough teaching her how to use XP but 8.1 is a non-starter for her - waaaaay too many instructions involved to do the most trivial things. It really doesn't help that Microsoft shifts more and more towards hiding necessary features in more and more obscure places... like where the f**k did media player disappear to? I used to detest media player because it hid the controls I wanted but now they've hidden the entire f***ing program when its running!

I use Windows 8 and I am still annoyed, but I have made it so that it goes to the desktop instead of the stupid Tiled screen.

Also got the start menu back, by downloading Start8 from stardock. It was $5 dollars but well worth it if you are going to try and hang onto Windows 8.

Finally, I download the widows 7 versions of programs like skype so that I don't get the stripped-down "Widows 8" version that only works on the tiled screen. So for the most part our Windows 8 behaves like Windows 7.

I think I may have had to go to the control panel somewhere and disable some funky mouse gestures behavior to keep the Tiled Start screen from appearing out of the blue.


I sure wish I had never touched Windows 8 though. Too painful....

That problem has been happening to me too sometimes. I'm in the middle of doing something via the desktop screen and suddenly and without warning it goes back to the apps screen leaving me wondering WTF! Then I have to go back to the desktop screen and try to find out where I'd got to before it interrupted me.

Honestly, I don't get what people complain about. With a few mouse clicks, you can alter the settings so that you're sent directly to the desktop instead of the start menu. Furthermore, it has builtin support for USB 3.0, better support for switchable graphics, better support for SSD/Hard drive hybrids, and boots quicker than Windows 7. Lastly, that God-awful Windows Aero theme is gone--hopefully for good.

I'm beginning to like Windows 8; just pressing the windows key and typing the first 3-4 letters of the application name is very convenient.

But the question is Windows 8.1, which is a completely different program from Windows 8.

I downloaded 8.1 thinking it was an upgrade. I had to Reset to Factory Settings to get back to Windows 8, and lost everything but it was worth it.

I would not choose either of them. I'm happy with XP ... er, *was* happy with XP.

Sure you can go to the desktop by clicking the desktop tile... but then it leaves you stranded. No start button - not a real one anyway and every time I clicked it all it did was toggle back to the window full of tiles. It was completely useless.

The one good thing about Windows 8.1 is the boot time - it does boot fast. It may well have better hardware support etc but the thing that lets it down is the terrible user interface. If Microsoft designed cars they'd include all the latest technology and all the fancy features but decide to leave out the steering wheel.

Seriously - you find typing the first few letters of an app name is convenient? With varying degrees of regularity I run around 100 different programs (no 'apps' at all). The ones I use most frequently I pin to the "real" start menu and those used less frequently are only two or three clicks away. I absolutely detest having to go hunting for programs, features and settings and Microsoft are going out of their way to kill productivity by hiding/burying things with each release of Windows.

Whatever application you need--regardless of placement or frequency of use--can be started by typing the first few letters. If I want to run Visual Studio, I just type "vi"; if I want to configure the GPU, I can just type "graphics" instead of looking for it on the Control Panel. It's very convenient.



Microsoft actually spends a lot of it's budget on interaction design, and generally speaking, neither Microsoft nor Apple will release something unless it's been positively received by the majority of the test subjects. I remember plenty of people who were used to Windows 3.1 who hated Windows 95 back when it was brand new. It didn't stop the system from being the most important OS since the Xerox Alto OS.

I think somebody who had never used Windows 95 through Windows 7, would have an easier time, as Windows 8 seems to act more like the pre-Windows 95 versions of Windows, than the newer ones.

Really? I then question who they are testing their proposed designs on. You can bugger a product by picking the WRONG people to test it on.

Nobody I know in the PC world likes the Windows 8 setup. It's nice if you have a touch screen only device, but if you're still using a mouse and keyboard, it's rather annoying. It was preceded by the UI for the 360, and that was considered a steaming pile of junk when it came out. Even a recent Microsoft ad said it best (my paraphrasing), "Many devices, One interface." They are more focused on making your PC interact like a giant smart phone or iPad than giving you something truly useful in a PC.

The new iOS is garbage. It might be "improved" in some ways, but it looks cheap and some of the color options are mind-bogglingly bad. If you didn't like notepad before, you can't possibly like it now. YELLOW ON WHITE? Who's brain fart was that? I may not have been a fan of Steve Jobs, but whoever is running Apple now must have his head up his rectum.

umm, you do know that if you swipe up from the bottom edge on the tile screen ALL the apps on the computer are listed by category, right?

As a matter of fact, a good rule of thumb. is when in doubt, swipe the screen edges. that usually brings up further options for the app...

I'll admit, I didn't line 8.1 when I first tried it, but after a few days it started to grow on me. I really love the integrated news reader app, and one touch access to stuff I use often. If you take a bit of time to customize the tile screen the user experience is loads better.

Speaking of loads, I love the lightening fast boot times on 8.1 and the skydrive file I can now access on all 4 of my computers to share/sync files.

Of course, but it does it as the COMPUTER classifies them. You really (to what I know) can't organize them as YOU want them organized. Once you get too many programs, you have screen after screen of "apps" to deal with just to find the one you want.

It's garbage. Up to now, the user could classify how they wanted things after a program was installed.

Hell, iOS let you group apps and name those groups as you wanted to.

I just think MS is going the wrong way to make a "moron proof" OS.

I actually like windows 8, but when I upgraded to 8.1 all hell broke lose. I had a lot of driver problems that rendered my computer unable to sleep/shutdown properly. I updated all my drivers and even donwloaded unsupported beta versions, and although that fixed some of the problems, I still was unable to shutdown my computer. I downgraded to 8 that same day.

I've just been fumbling with Windows 8.1 - the wife wanted to play some games but they seem to be sorely lacking. It keeps wanting her to sign up for a Microsoft account. Anyway she found a minesweeper app sitting on the desktop app area and played a game on that but afterwards we couldn't figure out how to close it or get rid of it. There was an arrow to the top left but it clicking it didn't do anything. There was also a close (or similarly worded button) but that didn't do anything either. Swiping the screen in any and every direction wouldn't get rid of it either. Ended up clicking the Windows key and got to desktop then went back to apps and it had disappeared. Windows 8.1 is about as intuitive as brain surgery with a pick axe. It leaves you fumbling around with controls that don't work and controls that do work but are hidden.